


you will be (were definitely) found

by starfolds



Category: Hikaru no Go
Genre: Character Study, Gen, happy hikago day!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:41:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24013009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starfolds/pseuds/starfolds
Summary: Time flies both dizzyingly fast and achingly slow for Fujiwara no Sai.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 24





	you will be (were definitely) found

**Author's Note:**

> i was going to rewatch the series in prep for my attempt at hikago day but i couldn't get through ep1 without crying so, ahaha here we are. i just wrote from memory and hopefully i didn't get anything too wrong because it...has been over ten years since i saw the series ><

Time flies both dizzyingly fast and achingly slow for Fujiwara no Sai.

His spirit lingers. There’s too much bitterness and regret and despair—too much frustration and longing and pain that fills his heart to near overflowing he might as well be constantly, eternally, drowning. It’s the water he turned to in hopes that all of this will disappear; yet the water doesn’t wash any of it away.

And so he lingers.

He is here and, yet not. Bound to nothingness by the only thing he once held dear.

It’s hard to remember what that is some days.

He tries to keep track of time. Seasons pass by in a flurry—an endless cycle of sweltering heat to a cool breeze to freezing grounds to new buds forming. They’re marked by changing winds he cannot feel. He counts years by the heartbeats he doesn’t have until they’re nothing but an unending blur. Is there a difference between a century and a day? Does it even matter?

He doesn’t know why he still stays.

He has nothing to call his own except these ugly emotions that fester where his heart used to be.

It’s a wonder isn't it? A marvel, that his heart has not wavered. That he hasn’t been consumed by that same bitter frustration that broke his heart so badly it took his life with it. That he hasn’t given in to the despair. It would be so easy, to let his heart be corrupted by fury and hatred for the injustice served to him, for the lies that tainted the impeccable honor he once lived by.

He just wanted to teach.

He just wanted to play.

Why couldn’t he just have it?

Is it even worth it, lingering this long?

Could he even move on if he tried?

He wakes up because of Torajirou and it’s like no time at all has passed by.

He is eager. Hardworking. He listens and asks endless questions like the exemplary student that he is. He is polite and soft-mannered and reserved.

Torajirou gives way to Sai and lets him play.

This is all he ever wanted, isn’t it? The chance to play again. The chance to sit in front of a _goban_ and hear that gentle _plink_ as he lays down stones in his quest to stake his claim on the endless territory in his midst.

He is not in front of the _goban_ , and it’s not his fingers that grasp the cool white stones.

But Torajirou listens to his every word, and that is enough.

It isn’t enough.

He mourns Torajirou’s death like he would a close family member, like he would a dearly beloved friend. He mourns and feels a sadness so deep he didn’t think he was still capable of. Torajirou is a good man— _was_ a good man, and Sai is indebted to him. He gave Sai so many of his years freely, let him play all the games he desired but still—

Is it greedy of him, to want more?

Surely, this can't be it.

It's easier to linger this time.

His presence is stronger now, whether it's due to his time with Torajirou making him stronger or the abruptness of its end making him cling harder to reality—

He wants to play again.

Surely, he can be allowed to play again.

Torajirou can’t be the sole selfless person who would say _yes._

He’s a little too desperate, a little too impatient, at the start.

He has a voice now, a tangible audible voice that Torajirou listened to. He isn’t but a mere bundle of strong emotion that lingered while trying to keep who he is intact. He has a _voice_ , and surely, with the sheer number of people that come across this _goban_ he is bound to, surely someone will hear him soon enough.

Nobody hears him at all.

The _goban_ gets sold many times. It passes many hands and many households. _The last owned_ goban _by the great Hon’inbou Shuusaku_ is what they say. _Greatest go player of all time._

He realises, way too late, that he must’ve been speaking too loud.

Sickness. Nausea. Headaches. Heaviness. Shivers. That sudden unease from someone staring at the back of your head.

It’s his own desperation that drives everyone away.

Now they’re too scared to listen.

Now he’s in a room where the sun doesn’t shine, and it’s only the cobwebs and gathering dust that hears him.

He doesn’t speak when the two kids open the door.

It’s nice, hearing voices again. He imagines them bringing warmth in the room with just their presence. Their childish banter washes over him like birds chirping loudly during bright summer mornings.

Birds are jittery. They leave at the slightest noise and Sai is sure these kids will, too.

The boy sees stains that have been rendered invisible by new varnish and Sai tries not to feel hope.

_Can you hear me?_

Oh gods above, he does.

_You can hear my voice, can’t you?_

The boy hears him.

He’s suddenly free.

Hikaru is nothing like Torajirou.

Hikaru is loud. Boy, is he loud. He is playful and cunning in his own non-malicious way, knows how to whine and reason just right to get what he wants. He’s argumentative and won’t take no without a valid reason and is not hesitant at all to _yell._ He is dramatic and so colourful and bright—

And so unbelievably kind.

He also wants to learn.

Hikaru, who started with merely humouring a mourning spirit, who held his stones with all fingers and dropped them on the board with no finesse, who counted places so slowly and sometimes even made mistakes—

This boy wanted to learn.

He doesn’t want Sai making his decisions on the board for him. He wants to understand, he wants to know _why_. He wants to challenge the logic behind strategies made on the board and comes up with his own haphazard way of playing.

He almost drives Sai mad with his questions.

(Touya Akira, he definitely does.)

Sai has never felt more alive.

He can be a _teacher_ again, and the desire to teach, to watch his protégé come into his own while Sai sat just to the side of him—he did not think it would be greater than his own desire to play.

He often questions why he was allowed to linger for a millenia; he merely needs to look at Hikaru to know _why_.

_Aah. I have to go._

He doesn’t know how he knows, how he is _certain_ of it.

But he’s given Hikaru all that he knows, and has gotten in return more than Hikaru can ever know.

It’s only a matter of time now.

They don’t finish their last game.

An unfinished game is always steeped in regret, but Sai does not regret this—

Not any of it.

Not the thousand years he waited, not the darkness and the loneliness that came with it.

His fingers brush over the _goke_ left open and if he imagines hard enough, he can almost feel the cool stones.

_It was all worth it._

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote most of this at 4am while being extremely sad as some form of therapeutic writing so if it's a bit disjointed, that's... probably why ><


End file.
